Clinical Features and Characteristics of Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease Caused by Recent Coxsackievirus A6: Five Cases in Japan from 2019 to 2022

• Published in: Infectious disease reports Vol. 16; no. 4; pp. 587 - 593
• Main Authors: Naomiya, Kyohei, Ito, Takashi, Saito, Ayumi, Igarashi, Tsukasa, Nakayama, Tetsuo, Katayama, Kazuhiko, Ishikura, Kenji
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 29.06.2024; MDPI
• Subjects: Blood tests; Body temperature; Chicken pox; Clusters; Communication; Coxsackievirus; coxsackievirus A6; Coxsackieviruses; Disease; Encephalitis; enterovirus; Enteroviruses; Erythema; Exanthema; Fever; Genomes; Hand-foot-and-mouth disease; herpes simplex virus; Herpes viruses; herpes zoster virus; Hospitalization; Infectious diseases; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR); Skin; Strain analysis; Viral infections; England; United Kingdom > UK; United States > US; Japan; herpes simplex virus; hand, foot, and mouth disease; enterovirus; herpes zoster virus; coxsackievirus A6; reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)
• DOI: 10.3390/idr16040044
• ISSN: 2036-7430; 2036-7449

Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is a common infectious disease caused by enteroviruses. Coxsackievirus A6 (CV-A6)-associated HFMD has recently emerged as a predominant disease worldwide. Here, we describe five HFMD cases caused by CV-A6 in Japan from 2019 to 2022. All clinical courses were not severe and were self-limited, and the skin exanthema with vesicles differed from that in classical HFMD. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the major epidemic strain cluster of CV-A6 was formed independently in 2011, and our latest CV-A6 strains in Japan were detected within this cluster. The five cases described in this report indicate the recent shift in the predominant and continuous disease manifestation of CV-A6-associated HFMD.